Oct 21st, 2008 at 10:42 am
McCainiacs Against Bigotry
John McCain supporters, including some Muslim John McCain supporters, confront some of the anti-Muslim bigots in their midst:
It’s a reminder that until very recently, Arab-Americans and American Muslims were both actually Republican-leaning constituencies.
47 Responses to “McCainiacs Against Bigotry”
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October 21st, 2008 at 10:47 am
call me cynical, but i thought this felt a little staged.
October 21st, 2008 at 10:48 am
One wonders if this isn’t just a contrived stunt to appease McCain’s secret Middle Eastern Muslim donors:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080602485.html
Lord knows, he can use the money.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Well, even if it was staged, it’s still an improvement that they’re staging this kind of thing. It’d be great if they sent instructions out to replicate this sort of behavior, if only for press coverage, in other parts of the country.
Doesn’t mean we should let our guard down, but I think getting Republicans to at least pretend to be pluralistic is a win.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
You guys are cynical. I believed it. It made me feel good that there are McCain supporters who repudiate racism. I hope that more of them to speak up.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am
Just shows what is at the core of the McCain campaign and why these people are really against Obama. This is all about race and religion…
http://www.sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/
October 21st, 2008 at 11:09 am
1. The Kurdish girl is kind of cute.
2. 2000 was the first year that either party really made a concerted effort to target Arab/Muslim voters. Bush campaigned on a pledge to end the use of “secret evidence” against suspected Arab terrorists. (Oops!) And he won the Arab/Muslim vote. Gore, though, still carried Michigan.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:12 am
I don’t mind if this is “just a contrived stunt.” The McCain campaign and McCain supporters should find (staged or not) ways to send this message.
I support Obama, but I don’t feel the need to demonize all his supporters; those of his supporters who derserve it demonize themselves.
I would rather McCain lose while rejecting bigotry and hate than lose while embracing them.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:14 am
It is strange to see one party give up on every demographic category other than white christians. Latinos, African Americans, and Muslims are demonized, denounced, and used as symbols of external threats to America by the GOP and its base. I guess they haven’t seen the projections of what the future demographics of the American electorate look like.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:40 am
Since we’re going to have to function together as American citizens whoever wins (Obama), it’s heartening to see McCain people who are responsible citizens.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:41 am
“The Kurdish girl is kind of cute.”
Hey, my thoughts exactly!
At first I thought “cute, but dumb”, but is she really Kurdish? I guess if there is one group that has a legitimate reason to vote for McCain and his 100-year occupation of Iraq, it’s the Kurds.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
i agree, but there’s no reason to assume McCain or his campaign had anything to do with this video.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:46 am
cleek:
call me cynical, but i thought this felt a little staged.
You mean the nutjob is a Democratic party provacateur? Could be, I guess. But there are some real nuts like that who think Obama is a Muslim.
Funny thing about the bumpersticker with the crescent and star and hammer and sickle, Muslims were really key in bring down the “evil empire.” Muslims in Afghanistan provided their Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia kept oil prices low which really hurt the USSR. Muslim Turkey was a huge ally as was Muslim Iran before the revolution. Muslim Indonesia was a big ally in the Cold War too.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:52 am
I don’t think it was staged, per se. The Muslim campaign official who was a U.S. Rep is, I’m sure, against the kind of anti-Muslim bigotry at rallies. I would guess that the reporter filming the encounter may have gathered the Muslim McCain supporters to confront him, if that means it’s “staged”.
And yes, the Kurdish girl was cute.
Also agree that the Kurds are probably completely in favor of a 100-year U.S. occupation, which may explain her support.
Though Biden is the one that once proposed splitting Iraq into 3 countries and since this probably means an independent Kurdistan, that’s something to consider as well.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:53 am
no. more like “hey, guys, let’s go show that the GOP isn’t 100% bigots by gathering around this guy with the bumper stickers and pretending we’re doing a spontaneous protest! this will counter the ‘Kill Him’ stuff that the treasonous lefties are pushing!”
but, again, maybe not. maybe it was authentic. i’m probably just too cynical these days.
October 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
I’m glad this was done, whether staged or not. If it is done much more often and the words “socialist” and “terrorist” are dropped from Palin’s speeches, we’ll be getting somewhere. But it won’t change the fact that McCain/Palin were willing to let things drift in this direction until it proved detrimental to their popularity.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:06 pm
It could be staged. There are several convenient edits without much of a drop off in continuity.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Even though I wish they were not voting for McCain, I am really proud of these young people. They represent what I have found in my own day-to-day interactions with the under 30 set: they just don’t do the bigotry and fear thing well, and they are rationally not as susceptible to these kinds of attacks. It gives me hope for our future. Maybe these kids will return the Republican party to a true party of conservative philosophy, so that it can credibly reenter the dialogue and debate we will so desperately need in the years to come.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:15 pm
The comments here and elsewhere about how cute the Kurdish woman is are quite distracting from the serious issues here. I think such women need head coverings to prevent such sexist attention, and keep their mouths shut for good measure.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Staged or not, as people said over at T-NC’s site, there needs to be at least two major parties in American politics, and someone’s got to make the Republicans respectable again. Things like this are a start.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:33 pm
I could overlook the Kurdish girl’s McCain proclivity. Really, I could.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Apparently this guy was to be interviewed by CNN and the McCain campaign pulled him at the last second.
Wouldn’t want to seem inclusive this close to an election.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Peter K.: Not that it would do any good, but I’m surprised that there haven’t been more people pointing out the contradiction in “Obama is a Muslim” and “Obama is a Socialist.” He’s going to turn us into a theocratic communist state!
October 21st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Tomemos,
There have been Muslim Socialists before, you know. Nasser was a Muslim socialist, as were Ben Bella, and the founders of Bangladesh, and the rulers of South Yemen. The Jihadists didn’t consider Nasser a socialist, of course, but I’m not sure when the Jihadists became the arbiters of who is a real Muslim.
October 21st, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Sorry, correction….”the Jihadists didn’t consider Nasser a MUSLIM.”
October 21st, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Hector,
Fair point, but the implications about Obama (”madrassa,” e.g.) certainly are to the effect that he’s an extremist Muslim, one who would never be compatible with socialism.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Regarding the Kurdish girl: None of this would have happened if there hadn’t been a cute Muslim girl there. Clearly all of those dudes went into babe-override.
October 21st, 2008 at 2:56 pm
How dare you say the Kurdish girl is cute? You’re all a bunch of sexists!
Sorry, been reading Shakespeare’s Sister lately.
October 21st, 2008 at 3:44 pm
As part of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist’s attempt to win the Arab-American vote for the GOP, the Bush Administration started a program in the summer of 2001 to prevent airport security personnel from giving extra scrutiny to Arab-looking passengers. The man who checked Mohammed Atta in on 9/11/2001 said that he’d never seen anybody look more like an “Arab terrorist” but then he gave himself a “little politically correct slap” for being prejudiced, and let him through.
October 21st, 2008 at 5:33 pm
Good for them. But a campaign that turns away its most animated supporters is not a winning campaign.
October 21st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Tomemos,
Yes, which is what’s the silly thing. Obama has been accused, at various times, of being a cosmopolitan atheist, a radical Christian, and an extremist Muslim. He could be one of those (in fact he’s none of them) but he can’t be all three simultaneously.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:56 pm
“As part of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist’s attempt to win the Arab-American vote for the GOP, the Bush Administration started a program in the summer of 2001 to prevent airport security personnel from giving extra scrutiny to Arab-looking passengers. The man who checked Mohammed Atta in on 9/11/2001 said that he’d never seen anybody look more like an “Arab terrorist” but then he gave himself a “little politically correct slap” for being prejudiced, and let him through.”
I love it when conservatives bring out this angle, ie the reason 9/11 happened was because we weren’t discriminating against Arabs/Muslims enough. Please, give me a break. Even if we barred all Middle Eastern people from getting anywhere close to an airport, we would still get these attacks. Also, anyone who really thinks that airport guards are politically correct is the same type of person who looks at the rodney king beatings and says “oh, those poor cops”. In hindsight, dicsrimination looks like it may have been okay, but only 0.00001% of all these terrist-looking people will be actual, you know, bad guys.
October 21st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Also, that Kurdish girl definitely wants me to join the Republicans. It’s weird though, there aren’t too many Kurds or Turks in the States… you’re much more likely to see a Lebanese, who would probably be hot.
Related pick up line
Guy: Hey, was your dad a terrorist?
Girl: What?! No, why?
Guy: ’cause you da bomb.
Don’t use it in Middle Eastern countries.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
What condradicts it is that he has the Moon Crescent and the Soviet logo on his jacket. Last I checked, Communists are
raging Athiests that hate Muslims and their Abrahamic cousins.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
McCain never intended for those resorting to defamation
of Obama based on his religion, and defamation of Islam
to be at his rallies. These rallies are open to the public.
It’s just too bad that as a man who takes pride in his allegiance to the Republican party, and takes pride in
my Conservative values and principals, that there are
people representing this party that are blatantly racist
and intolerant. But, lemm’e tell you, they aren’t in the
majority of Conservatives. Most Conservatives I know personally, like myself, see no room for racism and
religious intolerance. I equally condemn left-wing
scumbags and Black Nationalists that accuse Senator
McCain of having ties with the Ku Klux Klan and the
SkinHeads.
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